Food is something that I love (to cook as well as eat), but what I love more about food is the fact that it brings people closer; food has the power to make everything better. (un)Fortunately for me, my mom and my wife are much more seasoned chefs than I am, so I seldom set foot into the kitchen to cook; it’s been almost two months since I cooked something (microwaving instant noodles or popping corn doesn’t count).

Weekends are always fun – there’s never a dull moment, lots of leisure time and plenty of catching up on the past week’s lost sleep. Any special family activities that I can think of (be it an outing or doing something together), I save them for the weekend. After not being able to contain the urge to caress some utensils, I stormed into the kitchen with gusto to try out two tempting cookie recipes.

The first one of these two amazing recipes include Cumin seeds. Cumin seeds (or Zeera – as they are called in Urdu) are an integral part of Pakistani cooking; not only do they give a magnificent aroma to your food, they also help cure indigestion and acidity.

Here is a time-tested recipe (courtesy: Mrs. Yousuf Bawany). Again, it would be selfish of me to take all the credit; not my recipe, not my execution but I did help make them.

Ingredients

• Flour – 4 oz
• Castor sugar – 1 oz
• Egg – 1/2
• Baking Powder – 3/4 tsp
• Cumin Seeds (crushed) – 1 tsp
• Salt – 1/2 tsp
• Butter – 2 oz

Method

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt
2. Beat butter and sugar till light and creamy
3. Beat the egg lightly and add to the butter mixture; continue to beat
4. Add the cumin seeds to the butter mixture
5. Once the butter mixture is light and fluffy, fold in the flour mixture using a rubber spatula
6. This mixture will turn into a soft dough
7. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch thick sheet and using a cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits into your favorite shape(s); alternately, you can make little dough balls about 1 inch in diameter and flatten them with your hands to make these biscuits
8. Spread these molded biscuits out onto a lightly greased baking sheet
9. Preheat oven on gas mark 4 (180° C) and put them in for about 20 minutes
10. After taking them out, let them cool down before serving

A batch of these delightful biscuits can make your tea-time extra special. These can last for quite some time if you put them in an air-tight container, so why not head into your kitchen and enjoy some right now?